Directors Guild of America award nominations … Woody Allen and Martin Scorsese are two DGA lifetime achievement award recipients this year vying again for the main title. Photograph: Joel Ryan/AP & David Gadd/Allstar

The Oscar engravers will be sharpening their chisels: the Directors' Guild of America has released its nominations. Since 1948 the winner of that award – this year to be held on January 28 in a ceremony hosted by Kelsey Grammer – has progressed to win the best director award at the Oscars 58 times out of 64.

This year's shortlist contained no surprises, just genuflection: Woody Allen, 76, who won for Annie Hall in 1977 and picked up a lifetime achievement award in 1996, is nominated for Midnight in Paris. He's up against fellow veteran Martin Scorsese, 69, for Hugo; Scorsese won for The Departed in 2006, three years after picking up a lifetime achievement award.